Waters breaking before labour starts

[RuthK]

Hi

My waters broke just before my first labour started. Although it was a bit messy it was great, as I knew I was definitely in labour and I felt it made labour go much quicker.

Unfortuantly, for my second labour (she was posterior) they had to be broken.

Have any of you had their labours start more than once with your waters breaking? I'm interested to know whether you're more likely to have them break again if they've already broken once before.

R

[Sarie]

With my first my waters broke but I had to have the injection, after 10 hours contractions still hadn't started.
With my second, I'd had mild contractions for 3 days and still had to be induced.

[JanetF]

The guidelines for optimal practice devised in the UK show that you can safely go 96 hours (or longer) between rupture of membranes and the start of labour. Provided you stay home away from the germs in the hospital which are not your own, have no VEs because they spread infection, just rest and keep eating and drinking, you'll have no problems. A hospy MW I know recently altered the guidelines in the hospy she works at to no induction until 3 days after ROM and even then only if the woman is really fully informed as to the risks of induction. And voila! No more inductions because every woman went into labour naturally. Our bodies really do know how to labour :D

[Rell]

With my first my waters broke at 5pm no contractions so they put the drip in 8am the next morning
With my second my waters broke at 10.30pm and contractions started about midnight.

[RuthK]

Rell

I hope the same applies to me for this third one. With my second being posterior I'm not surprised that my labour was totally weird. Breaking of the waters is definitely a much more 'obvious' labour. I'm so afraid with this third and the intensity of Braxton Hicks contractions I get that I'll not realise I'm in labour until too late again (was 6cm last time, nearly didn't make it!)

R